If you thought the external designs of the two devices are different, wait til you see the operating systems! As you might expect, the Note 8.0 is loaded with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Samsung's TouchWiz UX, while the iPad mini has the latest iOS version.

The differences are obvious – while the Galaxy Note 8 has widgets, many customization options, and overall one of the best user interfaces available on Android, the iPad mini has a simplistic interface consisting of an icon grid – not particularly fun and entertaining, but super efficient and easy to use.

The interface of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

The UI of the Apple iPad mini

Out of the box, the Apple iPad mini has a better QWERTY keyboard – it's a actually a superb keyboard. Meanwhile, the Note 8.0's one isn't exactly marvelous, in fact we find it to be mediocre, but the good news is that you can still install a better, third-party one and tweak it to your liking.

The on-screen QWERTY keyboard of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

The keyboard options found on the Apple iPad mini

Internet and Connectivity

iPad mini has a wonderful browser, there's no doubt about that. Safari is super smooth and very responsive, but the Note 8.0 is almost equally responsive and even manages to beat the iPad mini in terms of performance in some situations. In addition, it also supports Adobe Flash Player, which is not available on the iPad mini. As you can imagine, there are still tons of sites online which utilize Flash for one thing or another.

The internet browser on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

Browsing the web with Safari

Throw in the superior screen resolution of the Galaxy Note 8.0 and it easily becomes the better device with regards to web browsing.

The iPad mini is already available with the three biggest US carriers – AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, and it supports 4G LTE connectivity to make the most of these guys' networks. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Note 8.0 is yet to get announced by US carriers. For the time being, we're only aware of the international model, which packs HSPA+ connectivity. Theoretically, the iPad mini should be able to establish a faster connection even when used on an HSPA+ network, but it isn't certain if this would happen in a real-life situation.

S Pen

A Note 8 feature that is nonexistent on the iPad mini is the S Pen, which works very well and allows you to take hand-written notes comfortably. There's a lot of custom software on the Note 8.0 which makes handwriting work very well, and it certainly is a wonderful feature that gives the Note 8.0 a certain degree of uniqueness.

Awesome Note

Paper Artist

There's a lot of custom software on the Note 8.0 which makes handwriting work very well

It is weird but it looks very cool on the mini. I thought it was weird on the normal ipad but i didnt notice that on my mini. I feel like if there was more icons it would look awful and too crowded. Having 5 icons on the dock i can definitely imagine how it would look like and i don't think it would look very great.

How often do you use your HDTV in portrait? NEVER!
A tablet should be used in both portrait or landscape, and it should show as much as possible in either way, it portrait it's wide and in landscape it's better for web browsing since it shows more content, but yeah 16:9 is better for watching movies but just for that, and that's not my main usage for a tablet.

Writing this from my mini and I dont regret my decision the least bit...the ipad mini is a solid, well built device and its screen (even though not a retina one) looks and works brilliantly! The app store wins it hands down over the android market for tablets. This is the main reason why I chose to go with apple over android in the tablet department.

PS: I own a galaxy s3 for a phone and very happy with it. Its just that android is still lacking in the app department when it comes to tablets

Writing from my mini as well. It is indeed an awesome device. I absolutely love the design. Best tablet design ever. About the display, the only problem is pixel density but it works perfectly, the only moments where it isn't very great, is in the browser, where you can't read the small letters. Besides that, the screen has viewing angles, responsiveness, contrast and colors comparable or equal to the best tablets.

Why make something that is on par with the mini, why not make it slightly more appealing than the mini and just give it a high resolution display? Can't possibly cost that much more.

All I want is a fast (doesn't have to be the best) high res 8 inch android tablet with a mSD slot so it is portable and I can display photos I take with my SLR on it quickly. Price doesn't really even matter. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Yet there NONE on the market.

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